Public Safety Committee on April 24th, 2007

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you for coming here today to put the evidence on the record that you're working quite hard. Your group has finished its current role and now it's up to the respective ministers and the respective jurisdictions.

Indirectly I'm asking you if there is any money in the budget right now for the implementation of this, or was the money only for the work of the working group?

[Karen Sallows]

There was no money per se given to the working group to conduct its work. In the FPT context, we all collectively sponsored that, and our department was leading on behalf of the FPT community, again at the direction of those ministers, so that work just proceeds on its own. There has been no source of funding identified, if you will, in the FPT context, other than that we all know we have to address that at some point because we know that to set it up requires additional resources.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

In actual fact, Mr. MacKenzie said to us last week that there will be no royal recommendation going with this private member's bill. So, effectively, for all intents and purposes, that kills this particular bill.

But I think we're all hopeful, and the reason you're here is to convey in a very formal manner that we're all hopeful, that your work moves forward so that we can have a government bill come forward in the not too distant future, after the province and the federal ministers have met. I'll just put that on the record.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. Are there any further comments?

We'll move now to the Bloc Québécois.

Ms. Mourani, do you have...?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I do not have any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. We will then go back to the government side. Does anyone have a question? We have no one else on the list.

Go ahead, Mr. Chan, and then Mr. Comartin, if you have anything.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

My concern is about the cost of the implementation. I've been a software systems guy before politics, and at that time, in the eighties, custom systems were not very available on data manipulations and so on.

Learning from the past experience that we have in government, how do you intend to approach the implementation of such a system? Are you engaging expertise outside of government, or would you like to develop your own expertise?

[Karen Sallows]

I will ask Dr. Fourney to elaborate. We have, as I said earlier, the advantage of all the experience and science and technology, including interactive softwares, in building the national DNA data bank in a DNA context, the handling of profiles and how you would manage them in an electronic context. So that is there that could be taken advantage of in terms of MPI.

That said, again it's certainly not going to be cost free.

[Dr. Ronald M. Fourney]

I think the good news is that we've learned a great deal from our work with the national DNA data bank, and for that matter from the last 10 years with DNA in general.

I'm happy to report that I think from a software perspective, certainly the matching and the maintenance of the records, there seem to be existing programs and software out there. A lot of this is our own. For instance, the national DNA data bank was an intellectual property we provided for Canada, and we established software that is used worldwide, and also from our colleagues in the U.S., the combined DNA index system, or CODIS, which is freely given to any law enforcement agency in the world, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice.

I'm happy to report we have a committee working right now on the potential of using this software and opening it up for others to use from a missing persons perspective. So I think we're in pretty good shape, actually.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

The best is for the last, our brilliant questions now.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Actually, this is more visionary than anything else.

The only effective way that we can make use of a DNA database is to have everybody sampled, the whole population sampled. Is that fair?

I know we're not there yet, but has there been any assessment made of that long term? With what the U.K. is doing in terms of the numbers of crimes they grab samples on, they're moving rather rapidly toward catching a much larger base than we are. But has any assessment been made?

Let me give you one scenario. You're parents of a child. At time of birth you say, I want to be sure that until this child is an adult their sample will be in a base someplace where we could always compare it if the child is kidnapped or in some other way lost to us. Is there any thinking, any analysis, going on? Are there any reports on that approach?

[Karen Sallows]

Perhaps Greg would have other information to add.

I do know that there has been comment that DNA profiles should be treated just like fingerprints. Then when you make analogies to situations in which parents.... And there are programs with different police forces and schools to have their children fingerprinted for such proactive persons. I have heard tell that some private companies are offering this service to parents in the United States and other places.

As far as that happening on a national basis, I think we have been focused on this purpose in this context. That debate hasn't advanced forward. The idea comes up around the concept of DNA and its public interest uses a number of times, but in terms of this work, we're not expanding a bit further.

It's not to say that once an MPI index is established that other uses, such as in natural disasters, other things like that...there might be expansions of scope in that regard, or perhaps the military or others may want to proactively sample their personnel, but that's not part of this exercise at this point in time, if that gets at your question.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Have you seen any analysis of what it would take?

[Greg Yost]

There was some commentary when Tony Blair made a comment to the effect that everybody should be in. That was a couple of months ago. One of the interesting analyses was of the costs involved in getting all 60 million Britons in there and what the actual benefits would be, as opposed to a system based on identifying certain people who appear to be more dangerous. We're now talking the criminal side here; we're not talking the missing person side, of course.

I don't think I'd even dare ask our charter people that question. I think the answer would come back by return e-mail.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I can tell you that on the charter side, you're safe on the scenario of the parent with the child, but it's beyond that. How to get the sample out once they become adults would be the next issue.

[Greg Yost]

Yes, that would be an issue.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Are there any further questions before we move in camera to decide what we're going to do?

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I just want to put on the record that it would be very useful to have this group back to update us after the next ministerial conference in the fall.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

All right.

We will pause for a moment to move in camera. We thank our witnesses very much for coming.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We are now going to proceed with the clause-by-clause of Bill C-279, the DNA Identification Act. The bill has five clauses. The normal procedure here is to have a discussion and then vote on each of these.

Do we want to have any discussion before I call for clause 1 to carry?

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have one issue. The researcher has properly given us some guidance there, but what about simply the comment on the overall bill as opposed to on the clause-by-clause? I'm finding it difficult to go through it clause by clause, to tell you that I have an issue with each clause, or any clause. It's the whole package.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

As chair, I would welcome comments on the entire bill. Does anybody have any general comments, then, on the bill as a whole before we go into clause-by-clause--support or concerns?

Go ahead, Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, I certainly support the bill, in principle. The difficulty, going forward, is that we still do not have the jurisdictional issues resolved vis-à-vis the federal-provincial-territorial arrangements.

At the same time, as long as this has been worked on, we still do not have any financial amounts for the committee to ponder. Without a royal recommendation, the bill can't go forward.